Sen. Amy Klobuchar said 'some pro-choice Republicans' might get on board with codifying Roe v. Wade into law
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar suggested codifying abortion rights into law could be the solution to protecting abortion access.
- Klobuchar said some "pro-choice Republicans" have signaled support for the idea.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar in an interview Sunday said some Republicans could be on board with codifying Roe v. Wade into federal law after the US Supreme Court last week signaled it could buck precedent and limit access to abortion.
Her comments come as the Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a case that could lead to the gutting of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that has safeguarded access to abortion in the US for decades.
Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, told Chuck Todd during an appearance on "Meet the Press" that Roe v. Wade represented "fifty years of decisions and court decisions, part of the very fabric of women's existence in this country."
"This is how our country protected rights, and now they're willing to just flip it on its head," Klobuchar said of the court. "The answer may well be doing it through the political process now. I don't think that's the right thing to do, but it may be the right way to do it."
"I think the best way to do it is not a patchwork of state laws, but to put it, codify Roe v. Wade, put it into law. We even have some pro-choice Republicans that have signaled interest in doing that," she added.
The case currently before the Supreme Court is Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. At the center of the case is a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Insider's Oma Seddiq reported. The standard set by Roe prohibits states from outlawing abortion before roughly 24 weeks of pregnancy.
During arguments last week, the conservative justices on the court appeared open to throwing out Roe v. Wade.
With a conservative majority on the court secured under former President Donald Trump, Republican-led state legislatures across the US this year targeted abortion access. An all-out ban on abortion after six weeks in Texas was allowed to take effect in September after the Supreme Court declined to stop it.